


Gold and Fire

by atardisonacloud



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atardisonacloud/pseuds/atardisonacloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hadn’t seen this one before, though. The walls were the same sort of odd melding of organic and machine as the rest of the TARDIS, although this room seemed to have more of the natural world- reddish grass under her feet and golden yellow roses growing up pillars. Written for the tardisficathon</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold and Fire

**Author's Note:**

> note! This version of the Cloister Room is pre-Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. I think the Cloister room we see in Journey to the Center of the TARDIS matches the Eleventh Doctor’s current TARDIS interior. Therefore this one will NOT turn you into a Time Zombie as Eleven’s current cloister room is the only one to do that and previously you could safely go hang out in there...

The first time that Rose heard the Cloister Bell, it was alerting them to the fact that the TARDIS had been parked near an active Volcano that would erupt hours later on the moon of Axillon 5. The Doctor had been baffled about what the TARDIS had been kicking up a fuss about- the volcano hadn’t ever been known to erupt before and everyone had assumed it was a basic mountain.

When it erupted and they were sent running for the TARDIS, they hadn’t been able to convince any of the locals to go with them. The society wasn’t very technologically advanced and thought it was magic, not science and weren’t willing to trust that “magic”. She hadn’t realized they hadn’t been followed into the relative safety until after the Doctor had already ushered her inside and made a beeline for the controls to move the TARDIS out of there.

She wasn’t angry with him, per se. She knew that if he’d had a way to save the city he would’ve done it in a heartbeat and he had tried to convince whoever he could to join them. However that didn’t mean she didn’t feel totally okay and even though she knew crossing your own timeline was a disaster she was still a little tempted to tell him to back up, tell everyone about the explosion so they could move away and get out of town before the eruption. The only reason she didn’t was because she doubted they would be willing to listen to prophetic warnings about disasters if they wouldn’t go near the TARDIS.

She hadn’t particularly wanted to hang around the console with the Doctor as he got them safely into the vortex, so she’d wandered through the hallways. By her count, she’d been traveling with the Doctor for about a year and six months. That said it was difficult to say what, exactly counted as a day, here. She’d mostly been trying to keep track of 24 hour periods. But either way, after what may have been a year, she still hadn’t seen every room on the TARDIS- sometimes it seemed like new ones popped up out of nowhere. The more that she thought about it, the more likely that theory seemed.

She hadn’t seen this one before, though. The walls were the same sort of odd melding of organic and machine as the rest of the TARDIS, although this room seemed to have more of the natural world- reddish grass under her feet and golden yellow roses growing up pillars. She rested her hand against one of the pillars, eyeing the odd contraption in the middle of the room.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, but she did know she was startled when she felt a hand rest lightly on her shoulder. “Rose?” His voice was cautious- clearly wondering what exactly her mood was going to be like.  
“Never seen this room before,” she said.

“The Cloister Room.” He pointed to the odd bell in the middle of the room. “That’s the Cloister Bell. It was what was making the noise that the TARDIS was in danger. I should’ve listened to it.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s not like she gave us a full run down of what exactly was wrong.” She frowned, pursing her lips. Sometimes it seemed like the Doctor was closer to the ship than he was to her. Actually, she was pretty sure he actually was, which was still slightly concerning.“Right?”

“Right.”

He didn’t seem like he wanted to linger. She wondered if he had specifically tried to hunt her down so that he could bring her back to the console room or if he had just happened upon her. Something made her happy about the idea that it was probably the former, even if she couldn’t put it into words. “Why’s the grass red?”

“The grass on Gallifrey is red, with mountains covered in snow.” She smiled as she watched him talking about it- she didn’t want to push him, though. She never could quite tell if he was happily reminiscing or if his mood was going to sour because he was thinking about the war.

“And the flowers?”

There was a small quirk of his lips. “The TARDIS and I are connected. It tends to adapt to my preferences.”

She considered prodding at him about the flowers (her dates always seemed to think they were so clever when they quipped “a rose for a Rose” when they presented her with one, as if she’d never heard that one before), making him say more but she didn’t, just smiling at him, catching her tongue between her teeth. The tongue thing was the dead giveaway that her smile was genuine. Her mum had been able to figure that out when she was a child.

“Are you all right?” he asked, a touch more seriously, clearly not wanting to refer to what they’d just seen in words.

She shrugged, swiping a stray lock of blonde hair back out of her face. “I’m fine, good thing we can run fast.”

“If I could’ve done-”

“I know,” she said with a little bit of a sigh. “There was no way to force them onto the TARDIS, there was no way to go back and warn them, there was no way we could do anything, but we still had to see it happen.” That wasn’t completely true- her back had been turned running, but she’d heard the sounds of people burning and thinking about it was making her stomach turn. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“What for?” 

“That’s what it’s like for you all the time, isn’t it? Seeing all those things happen and knowing you can’t do anything about it...”

“Not all the time,” he said and he grinned as he reached for her hand, although she wasn’t quite sure it reached his eyes. “Let’s go get dinner?” he suggested and as she walked with him, he moved to loop his arm around her shoulders and she felt him press a kiss against the top of her head.


End file.
